The prior art describes many different methods for gaining access to alternative telecommunication service providers. For example, present cellular telephones allow a subscriber to switch between two different carriers, i.e., an A carrier or a B carrier, on a per-call preference. One such telephone is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,042 entitled CELLULAR CORDLESS TELEPHONE issued to Gillig et al. on Jun. 30, 1992. There, a cellular telephone is described which is capable of placing a telephone call using the subscriber's cellular carrier or a telephone call via the base of a cordless telephone which uses the subscriber's telephone landline carrier. Whenever the cellular telephone is within range of the base of the subscriber's cordless telephone base, the cellular telephone automatically operates as a cordless telephone and selects the subscriber's telephone landline carrier.
Similarly, there are telecommunication systems where wireless telephones and conventional wired telephones are integrated to permit an in-progress telephone conversation to be transferred between wired and wireless telephones without further action by the telecommunication switch that facilitated the initial call. Such a system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,390,233 entitled TELEPHONE CALL TRANSFER BETWEEN A WIRELESS AND WIRED TELEPHONE issued to Jensen et al. on Feb. 14, 1995. As described therein, a telecommunications switch and a wired telephone are connected respectively to first and second wired communication channels. A third wired communication channel is coupled to a radio frequency base station that supports a plurality of concurrent wireless communication channels to wireless telephones. An interface circuit coupled to all three channels switches the connection of the first channel associated with a telecommunications switch between the second and third channels, and hence switches the established connection between the wired and wireless telephones.
The prior art also describes other systems for selecting between a plurality of telecommunication service providers. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,371,782 entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SELECTING A PREFERRED SERVICE PROVIDER DURING A CALL SETUP IN A CALL SETUP IN A PUBLIC CORDLESS TELEPHONE SYSTEM, issued to Casey, III et al. on Dec. 6, 1994, there is described a public telephone system wherein a cordless telephone handset unit can be used to select a preferred service provider from a plurality service providers. By generating a service request containing a specific carrier request code, the handset selectively identifies an available public base unit served by the desired local service provider and then establishes a communications link with this base unit.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,415 entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SHARING OF COMMON IN-HOUSE WIRING TO PERMIT MULTIPLE TELEPHONE CARRIERS TO SERVE THE SAME CUSTOMER, issued to Baran on Aug. 23, 1994, there is described a system which enables two or more telecommunication carriers to automatically connect to existing in-house telephone wiring according to the choice of the calling party.
Current methods and techniques, however, do not allow the higher-level decision, that of selecting one of the potentially available service access methods, in the hands of the user. Instead, as described above, the prior art allows the selection of a service provider to made in the network, as on the landline carrier, or in the air-interface, on the wireless access.
Accordingly, a need exists for a method which allows a user to select from available service providers based on cost or quality of service, either through stored profiles or at the user's option.